Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-06-04
WORSHIP OF TIE MOON.

SUPERSTITIONS REMAINING FROM
MEDIEVAL DAYS.
Reverence for the Horned Ashtoreth
Trivial Ideas Concerning the
Cross-Other Notions.
How startled many of US would be if we
were forbidden the rites of the Christian
church on the plea that we were still
heather. worshiping at the shrine of false
idols-we who go with our neighbors to
offer prayer and praise and hear the doc
trine expounded weekly by the clergyman
/ of the parish, who belongs to the General
Charitable, the Dorcas and the Old Ladies'
societies, who sacrifice our dime to the
offertory and subscribe to the African mis-
sion, to the new lectern and the church
music Yet that such is indeed the fact
We should not be surprised to hear if we
are people who are at all particular about
seeing the new moon over our right
shoulder; if we turn a piece of silver
in our pockets for luck at first behold
ing it; if we close our eyes rather than
see it through the window, and grope
our way out doors in that condition ;
if we regard it as fortunate and por-
tent of fine weather to see the new moon
in the old moons arms, or with its horns
turned upward; if we consider it a sure
sign of months bad weather when the
new moon falls on Saturday; if We bow to
it when we first see it, expecting the con-
sequence either of a gift or the fulfillment
of a wish expressed while bowling
if we refuse to have our pigs killed when
the moon is on the wane, lest the pork
shrink in the pot if we are careful as to
the especial phase of the moon with regard
to the time of telling our lumber-in short,
If we follow any of the customs or hold
any OF the notions which the Greek girls
followed or held concerning Diana, or the
Persian women felt obligatory in their rev.
erence for the honored ashtoreth.
1t is with different sort of worship-a
superstition remaining over from medieval
days, but yet a Christian one, if we can call
any superstition a Christian one-that,
when fire of soft coal refuses to burn, we
stand the poker up before it, thus making
the sign of the cross with the poker and
the top of the CRATE, and by that means
commanding the evil powers of fire
to obey, the fire really obeying the
law that creates draught through the
heating of the poker and the consequent
upward passage of the air. There is, how
ever, no such philosophical explanation OF
the habit of making the sign of the cross
over the foot that goes to sleep" as the
phrase runs.
The cross is the subject of many trivial
notion that should spare it, remembering
its terrible and sacred history. In one
legend of the sort it is said that lightning
never strikes the elder, because the cross
was made of it, and in another that the
| aspen always shivers in recollection of hav-
ing given its wood to make the cross, show
ing on its face that one or the other state
ment must be incorrect and, therefore,
Objectionable, as trihing with things out
side the pale of trifles. With as much
| reason do people speak of the red bud as
the Judas tree the tree on which the wretch
hanged himself, or declare that the willow
! weeps because it furnished rods for the
scourge of our Savior
In themselves, OF course, these fancies
| are no worse than thousand others, such
| az NLOSS W -hNh o'oNiC gOu thdL 1Ou
not for the first time go into your new
house by the back door, unless you would
invite disaster to enter with you; that it is
| unlucky to have swarm of bees come to
| you; and that your bees will not thrive
anyway if once made the subject of the
| least dispute; ana that they will cease to
| gather honey if they are not told of the death
that occurs in the house, and given their bit
of Grape for mourning. Any one, more
| over, is as certainly engaged in the prae-
| tice OF the black art and in Offering
| obedience to unknown powers as if invok-
| ing the countenance of the minor
deities that used to be supposed to rule the
DAYS of the week, who regards the
old sayings concernin; the days on which
ones nails should be cut Monday, for
health; Tuesday, for wealth: Wednesday
| for news; Thursday, new shoes; Friday, for
sorrow: S aturday, show your true love
| tomorrow" Sunday, being omitted, PROB.
| ably as day not TO be played with in this
| connection, or possibly with the idea that
| the utterance ola sacred word scarts away
| spirits and undoes the whole spell, al
| though another notion regarding the same
| necessary act of toilette forbids you TO cut
your nails on Sunday least you do some
| thing you are ashamed of before the week
| is over, which you are pretty sure, being
uiiidIi, W w III all eNtlllS.
Other notions of this nature, such as that
mushrooms do not grow after having once
been seen, that when angling if you count
| your fish you will catch no more, that il
rain drops linger on the pane there will be
no further rain, are hardly matters of invo-
| cation or incarnation, but indicate an
effort TO observe nature closely, even il
also indicative of partial failure in the
effort, or too speedy generalization on
| the observation made, as in the weather.
wise saying that there never was Satur-
| day on which the sun did not shine dur
ing some part of the day, which is not to
| be claimed certainly as superstition, but
as a not sufficiently careful note of the
operation Of the weather. OF the same
character is the idea that rats will not live
in Aberaeenshire, or in Sutherlandshire, oil
in certain portions of Argyleshire in
Great Britain, and that they desert ships
about TO sink and houses about to fall
probably because these are all ascer
tanned facts, the air or soil of certain dis
tricts proving unpleasant or unwholesomt
TO the veImin, and the state of the
timbeTs of precarlous constructions be.
! ing such as to attract the attention
of these extremely intelligent littl,
beasts. Yet, again, calling dark agencie:
into play is belief in the story tina
the old Irish used TO know how to rhyme
rat to death, or that rats could be induced
to leave ones premises by means of a lette
written and addressed to them, and sealed
with butter. Were the seal made visible by
means of PHOSPHORUS there might be {
tritie more of reason in the business.
That there is something not little de
| grading to the human intellect in the ell
couragement and pursuance of these anC
similar notions needs no reiteration anC
it is assuredly better to order life within
the limits of hard, bold fact than to leav,
| in it a margin for the rude imaginings o
the ignorant or degenerated worship of til,
pagan, however unconsciously it may b,
followed.-Harperi Bd1ar.
THE HOUSEHOLD.